it's a means to an end
by alinaandalion
Summary: There is a difference between "then" and "now." It's just hard to untangle it all at times. Spoilers up through 5x07, "The Real Fake Car Job."


The first time Sophie sees him is across the street in the middle of Prague. Well, it's not technically the _first_ time since she's caught glimpses of him trailing after her for most of the day.

But this is the memory that she's going to keep so it's really the only one that matters.

She takes in his dark suit, tailored to his lanky frame, his well-worn dress shoes, his easy stance even as he stares her down through the traffic. Her mouth curves into a smile as she nods her head at him, her fingers pressing against his beaten leather wallet deep in her coat pocket, and takes off down a side street.

It will take him a while to realize that she goes far enough to slip into a small store, buy a hat, and find a cab to take her in the opposite direction of him.

She has no doubt, however, that he will figure it out eventually. It just makes the escape even more satisfying.

When she gets back to her hotel room, she flips open his wallet, peruses the contents. Her fingers immediately pluck out all the cash and set it aside; her eyes light up when she sees a company credit card, and she takes that, too.

She needs some new shoes, and if IYS is going to insist on sending insurance cops to harass her, she'll indulge in some luxuries at their expense.

There's a wrinkled photograph tucked inside one of the folds. She pulls it out; it's a picture of a attractive blonde woman smiling and laughing at the camera. The edges are slightly torn, suggesting that this picture is pulled out often, probably on lonely nights spent in hotel rooms thousands of miles away from his home.

Slipping the picture back into the wallet, she closes the wallet and sets it aside. She found a business card from the man's hotel inside, so she'll return it tomorrow.

But the real success is that she now knows the man's name, printed in shiny raised plastic across one of his credit cards. She finds this man, Nathan Ford, intriguing.

She's almost looking forward to seeing him again.

* * *

When Nathan Ford finally manages to make it back to his hotel (it turns out it's almost impossible to find a cab when he has no money), he arrives to find five messages from Blackpoole about why the hell Nathan is spending thousands of dollars on high heels with the company credit card and his wallet waiting on him at the front desk.

He searches the wallet first and a business card is all he finds where his cash should be. The hotel's name across the front registers faintly in his mind, and he flips it over, reads _Better luck next time_. The paper smells faintly of a perfume he can't recognize, a scent that calls to mind sunshine and a long white beach.

He smiles just a little bit because, well, it is kind of amusing. Then he borrows the front desk's phone to let Blackpoole know that the company credit card needs to be cancelled.

* * *

The next time happens two years later in Damascus. This time, Sophie isn't surprised when she sees Nathan Ford. She isn't worried, though. She's had her plans carefully laid out for months, and he didn't catch her last time.

She finds out the hard way that people can still surprise her.

She knows even as she ducks down another street that he has her cornered. He's cut her off from any escape routes, and she realizes that if she has any hope of getting free of him, she has to throw the script out the window.

So Sophie does an about-face and smiles when Nathan Ford pulls up short in front of her.

"We haven't properly met," she says with a smile as though she hasn't spent the past hour leading him on a merry chase through the streets of Damascus. "I'm Sophie Devereaux."

He raises his eyebrows, but he replies, "Nathan Ford."

"I already knew that."

"Because you stole my wallet the last time I saw you."

"The last time you _chased_ me."

Nathan shrugs. "Just doing my job. Is Sophie your real name?"

"Nathan," she drags the two syllables out into an almost seductive purr, and she smiles, "don't pretend you're that stupid."

"How do you know I'm not that stupid?"

"I know a lot about you."

"Really?" He smirks and shakes his head, and her breath catches just the slightest bit at the sight of his wide blue eyes.

She sees the flash of handcuffs, and even though her instincts scream at her to run, she holds still, lets him cuff her and take the rolled up painting from beneath her coat. Sighing wistfully because she really did want that Klimt, Sophie instead uses the time he takes to examine the painting to pick the lock of the handcuffs.

She slips a deft hand into his pocket, leans close and murmurs, "Maybe next time," her lips whispering against his cheek as she runs off.

He has the painting; she has his wallet. Somehow it feels like a fair trade.

* * *

This time, when Nathan Ford makes it back to his hotel, he finds the picture he keeps with him of Maggie and Sam and his credit cards.

She's kept his wallet this time.

* * *

Sophie meets up with Marcus Starke later that year in Florence. It's not the first time they've worked together, but it's a different crew which keeps things interesting.

At some point that first night, she sleeps with him. She can't remember the exact details because she's drunk from too many glasses of wine; this isn't the first time they've had sex either, but it feels like it's better this time around. Or maybe that's because of the wine.

"I heard you had a run-in with Nate Ford recently," Marcus says.

Sophie lies beside him and stares up at the ceiling. "I did. Why?"

"Just curious about your life."

She hears the lie before she even registers the words, and it feels wrong that she's here in Starke's bed. Sitting up, she manages to find half her clothes and gets dressed in a haphazard manner.

"Where are you going?" Marcus doesn't even move from where he's lounging against his pillow.

She can only find one of her shoes; looking up at him, she says, "I'm going to my own room."

"You don't have a room here."

"Then I'll bloody well get one!"

She finally sees her missing shoe beside the door, and she snatches it up on her way out, slamming the door when she leaves.

(She ends up sleeping on the couch in Marcus's room because she's too drunk to walk down the entire hallway in her heels.

At least Marcus doesn't mention it in the morning.)

* * *

The third time she sees Nate, she's stealing an entire collection of paintings from a rich collector in Paris.

And Nate shoots her in the back.

Marcus is in Paris with her, running a different job, and he finds a doctor to stitch her up (who tells her in a thick Russian accent that she'll have a small scar). The entire time, Sophie swears up and down that she hates Nathan Ford and will kill him the next time she sees him.

She means it.

(A week later, Sophie obtains Nate's phone number and calls him to make sure he's all right. He's surprised; they manage to have a short pleasant conversation before she hangs up.

He doesn't ask her how she has his phone number, and she doesn't ask about the laughing child she can hear in the background.

One thing she only remembers later on is that he never says she shouldn't call him again.)

* * *

"Did you pick the same hotel I'm staying in on purpose or is this just a happy accident?"

Sophie starts at the voice behind her, but she smiles as she turns around and sees Nate leaning against the doorframe. This isn't completely unexpected as she had known he will be in Madrid for at least the week; his assistant always proves to be very helpful when Sophie calls.

"Why don't you tell me?" she asks as she raises one elegant eyebrow.

He just walks into her hotel room and settles into one of the cushy armchairs near the window. Rolling her eyes, she walks over to him, places a hand on her hip, and stares him down.

"Are you still holding a grudge about Venice?"

"A gondola chase is a tired cliché, Sophie."

"It was too good to pass up." She widens her smile and sits in the armchair opposite him. "Now what do you want from me? I can say quite honestly that I have not stolen anything."

"From this city," he corrects, and there's a smirk on his face. Leaning forward, he looks her dead in the eyes. "I need your help with a case I'm working on."

"The Great Nathan Ford needs the help of a thief?"

"It's an IYS client I've been sent to investigate. I think he's reporting things from his collection as stolen and selling them himself on the black market," Nate explains, producing a folder and handing it to her.

Sophie opens the file and nods her head as she skims through it. "And then cashing in on the insurance payout. So, what, can you not find the proof you need?"

"That's about it." He taps the arm of his chair and says, "That's why I need you."

"And what do I get out of it?"

"Sophie."

She shrugs. "Nate, I have to make a living somehow. If I'm going to help you with your work, I deserve some compensation. It's like a consulting fee."

"Were you planning on stealing something insured by IYS while you're here?" he asks with a sigh.

"No."

"Then I'll look the other way after you've helped me." He extends his hand. "Deal?"

She shakes his hand and grins. "Deal. Now let's get to work."

* * *

It's easier than it should be to work with Nate.

They spend a day planning out a con, and she's surprised by how _good_ he is at this, at playing the same games as her. They argue playfully back and forth about whether it should be a short or long con; she prefers the long con because there's an art to it, but he keeps pushing for a short con.

She gives in because he's the one with a family to go back to and because she likes having him here too much to risk him walking out.

Eventually, they settle on something simple and elegant. He points out a flaw in her plan that has never been a problem before and probably won't be one now, but he's adamant and she's a little too thrilled by his concern to argue that it doesn't matter.

The con takes three days and it goes perfectly.

On his last night, Nate insists on taking her out to dinner. She dresses up in champagne silk and diamond earrings, and her sharp eyes don't miss the way Nate stares at her. When he makes the effort, he cleans up very well, impossibly attractive in a dark blue tailored suit complete with cufflinks, so she can't exactly help the way she keeps glancing at him when she thinks he won't notice.

After dinner, she drags him to a bar around the corner from their hotel; she tells him she can't possibly go back to her room when she still has so much adrenaline from a successful con (that's partly true but really, she isn't ready to tell him goodbye). It's there that she finds out exactly how much alcohol he can put away, and she matches him drink for drink.

This is not the best idea in retrospect when they try to stumble down the street back to their hotel. His fingers keep catching on her hip when he stumbles, and she can barely manage to stay balanced in her heels; she finally gives in and leans heavily on him, her arm wrapping around his waist under his jacket. She can feel the heat of his skin through his shirt.

He kisses her when she's fumbling for her room's key in her purse.

Surprised, she gasps and he swallows it, pressing her back against the door, his lips slanting over her mouth, one his hands clutching at her hip and the other fisting in her hair. She recovers quickly and pushes back against him, moaning when he traces his tongue along her bottom lip. Her mouth opens of its own accord, and as his tongue rasps against hers, she traces her fingers along his waistband.

His fingers on her hip hitch her dress higher up her leg, and something snaps awake inside her, a reminder that this is the _worst_ idea ever and they need to stop. She pulls away, breathing hard; he chases after her, but she stops him with a hand pressed against his chest, his heartbeat thudding against her palm, a strangled _no_ falling between them.

He stares down at her, his eyes dark and so _blue_, and he's the one who takes the first step away. He rubs the back of his neck, a blush crawling up his skin.

"Sorry. I shouldn't have…I _know…_"

"Nate, it's all right." She smiles the slightest bit and leans her head back against the wooden door. "It won't happen again."

(But she thinks of this the next day and the weeks that follow in the time in between, remembers the way his fingers burned through her dress's thin silk, how his weight felt as he pushed her against the door.

She runs her fingers over her body, pretends they're his, and when she's on the brink of release, she can almost imagine what it would be like. She comes harder like this than she has in a few years.

She won't think about what it all means.)

He lifts his hand, as though he might touch her arm, but he lets it drop, a line appearing across his brow. "Yeah. It won't happen again."

He sounds wistful, and with one last look at her, he walks away.

It never does happen again.

* * *

Sophie steals a Matisse from a wealthy collector after Nate leaves. She fences it as soon as she can, determined to get out of Madrid.

She sends Nate a postcard before she leaves. It sits facedown on the desk in her hotel room for an entire day while she agonizes over what she should write. _I want to see you again…I want us to be friends…better luck next time…_

Nothing she can think of feels right so she mails it to him, the back blank and a picture of the hotel on the front.

(What she really wants to say is: _don't give up on me, don't let me disappear._)

She thinks that sending the postcard will help her stop thinking about Nate. She finds out that, like most of her plans when he gets involved, this idea is mostly unsuccessful.

* * *

The knock on her door comes early one morning when she's in London, as close to home as she ever gets anymore.

She finds Nate on the other side of the door, and he walks inside her flat without preamble, an open flask in his hand. He paces in front of her couch; she just wraps her robe tighter around her body and puts some tea on, waiting for him to speak.

It takes longer than she expects, and the agitated silence is broken by the kettle's whistling. Pouring two steaming cups of tea, Sophie carries one to Nate, pries the flask from his hands, and replaces it with the tea. She settles onto the couch with her own cup.

His hands tremble as he sets the cup down, as he sits down beside her. "Sam is sick."

"With what?" she asks delicately.

"It's cancer. We thought it was just kid stuff, you know, colds and the flu, but after awhile, we realized something might be wrong. The doctors did a whole bunch of tests, and we _just_ found out. And then I get sent over here to make sure someone's damn security system is up-to-date."

As he speaks, Nate gets more and more agitated until he fumbles for his flask and takes a long drink. She sets her tea to the side and touches his shoulder, a little hesitant, and he turns to her with despair in his eyes.

"Nate," she murmurs as she wraps her fingers more firmly around his shoulder.

He laughs bitterly. "I don't even know what I'm doing here. I just…I saw you yesterday on the street, and I thought… I don't even know."

"You followed me here." She can't help smiling at the thought even if it disturbing that he had trailed her and she didn't notice.

"It wasn't difficult. You're hard to miss."

There's something underneath his words that makes her feel heat spread through her cheeks, but she keeps her hand on his shoulder, needing that connection, and she looks him over. His clothes are crumpled like he slept in them, and his breath reeks of alcohol.

"When was the last time you slept?"

He rubs at his eyes and shrugs. "Um, two days ago? I can't remember."

"Come on." She stands up and offers him her hand. "You need to sleep."

"What are you doing?"

"I'm telling you that you need to sleep and because I don't trust you to not sneak out the door the second I fall back asleep, I'm putting you somewhere I can keep an eye on you."

"In your bed? Really?"

"Don't worry, Nate. If I was going to seduce you, I could do it just as easily on my couch as in my bed."

She sees his jaw tighten, the clench of his fist and knows in a rush that _he still wants her_. Then she tamps that thought down as he takes her proffered hand and gets to his feet.

He sleeps the rest of the day in her bed, and when she wakes him, it's to give him a sandwich she made for his supper.

After he finishes his business the next day, she sees him onto a plane home with a smile and a chaste kiss on the cheek.

(This is the last time she talks to him.)

* * *

Sophie sees Nate one more time while she's in Los Angeles for business.

The way it happens is a complete accident. She's out for the day, taking a walk, when she passes by a park. The sound of Nate's voice makes her turn her head, stop.

He's there with Maggie and Sam, and at the moment, Nate is pushing Sam on a swing while Maggie watches nearby. They look happy.

Sophie finds out later that what she sees is Sam in remission before the cancer comes back with vengeance.

She is unable to tear herself away for a moment. But the longer she stands there looking at Nate with his family, the more she starts to feel like the other woman.

So she leaves, and she takes the first flight she can out of Los Angeles even though she still has some matters to wrap up. Having Nate this close is a temptation she can't resist.

* * *

News of Sam's death reaches Sophie through a train of gossip months after it has happened.

Within the year, Sophie falls off the grid. Some say she retired. Others say that she's dead.

All Sophie does is move to the States with the intentions of being an actress.

She ends up in Chicago, and she stays there for a year and a half before Nate Ford walks back into her life.

* * *

"_I'm a citizen now. Honest."_

"_I'm not."_

"_You're playing my side? I always knew you had it in you."_

"_Are you in?"_

"_I wouldn't miss this."_

* * *

Working with Nate almost proves to be impossible.

They circle around each other, pushing and pulling, because this is the way they have always worked but neither is willing to admit that they are not the same, that there are almost three years between the time they knew each other and now.

She pushes because she wants to help him; he pushes back because he's angry and still grieving. Tempers flare, words and insults thrown back and forth like firebombs raining down destruction, and they just _can't _let it _go._

(So, in the end, when she proves him right, the break is inevitable.

What she realizes is that she misses the team almost as much as Nate.

She decides to blame Nate for that as well.)

* * *

Jack starts off as part of Sophie's plan to prove to herself that she is completely over Nate.

She meets him in a bookstore, thinks he's cute, so she drops her phone near his feet. After a couple of minutes of pleasant conversation when he returns the phone to her, he invites her out to coffee. Which turns into dinner. And drinks afterward.

It all leads to her sleeping with him. He's not as good in bed as she would like, but he's attentive and sweet.

(She does not think about how at some point when his mouth is between her legs, she wishes that he was Nate.

She does not admit even to herself that Jack's fingers don't press as hard as they should, that he's too tall, that she can't twist her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck.)

She's determined to make this work, though, because it will maybe force her world to right itself from the lopsided shape it's taken since the team broke apart, so she lets him ask her out on another date.

A string of dates turns into a relationship, and just when she's starting to think she might like Jack for who he is instead of just a distraction, he breaks things off.

It's unexpected, and it hurts worse than it should considering she's mostly thought of Jack as a fling. This is one of the few times in her life that Sophie is at a loss about what to do.

She's noticed Nate staring at her more and more, and she wants to do something about it, she does, but the timing is always wrong and then there's another job and then there's a _bomb_ in her hands, and she _can't_ anymore.

When she walks away from Nate in that graveyard, she half-expects for him to come after her.

She's not disappointed when he doesn't.

* * *

"_Starke was right. I'm not Sophie Devereaux anymore, I haven't been for ages…. You killed her. You and your silly crusade."_

"_It's just a name."_

"_No, they're not just names, not to me. All my aliases, every one of them, I…I know when their parents died, I know when they had their first kiss…"_

"_Sophie."_

"_You're the closest thing I've ever had to a real friend, and I've never heard you say my real name. How sad is that?"_

"_So tell me."_

"_Let me, let me finish burying Sophie first. Let me finish burying the rest of them until all that's left is me. Just me."_

* * *

"Are you sure this is what you want?" Tara asks as her lips land on Sophie's shoulder.

Sophie shifts underneath Tara, frowning. "I need to do this. And I need to know they'll be okay while I'm not there."

"So this isn't just about Nate?"

Tara slips her fingers between Sophie's legs, pressing into her thigh; Sophie widens her legs, pulls Tara down to her, and kisses her.

"It's not about Nate at all," Sophie mumbles as she nips Tara's neck.

"Bullshit." Tara pushes a finger into Sophie and rubs a thumb along her clit.

"Do you like me?"

Frowning, Tara circles her thumb harder on Sophie's clit. Sophie bites down hard on her bottom lip and whines in the back of her throat. Then Tara pulls her hand back and stares down at Sophie.

"You know I do. You're my friend," Tara says quietly. "What the hell has happened to you?"

Sophie shakes her head and sighs. "I don't know."

Tara considers her for a long moment and finally says, "I'll do what you want."

"Okay," Sophie whispers, arching up into Tara.

* * *

Eventually the phone calls from the team dwindle to almost nothing as they fall into the rhythms of life without Sophie there.

She keeps her phone with her at all times just in case. And she tries to touch base with them as she moves from one place to another.

(She's stopped herself from calling Nate more than once. This isn't about him.)

She really spends most of her time waiting for the inevitable phone call. _We need you…come back…please…_

Still, she's not ready for it when Tara does call her.

* * *

Sophie spends the next six months of her life hating Nate.

(She spends every night curled up in his bed, wearing one of his shirts because she misses him.)

This is not the way things were supposed to be when she came home. But she's nothing if not flexible, so she's determined to get Nate out of prison.

She can't let him win this one.

* * *

"_We're a good team."_

"_We are. We're a team. Finally. Partners-in-crime."_

"_Partners?"_

"_Together. See, you know, when we met, all that running and chasing, you know, it was romantic but it wasn't real. This, this is real. Friends."_

"_Friends, then. You want a friendly drink?"_

"_You're a bad influence."_

* * *

(This is how it happens: Sophie kisses Nate first.

They spend most of the evening drinking in Nate's room because Sophie can't go anywhere in the city without the risk of being recognized. She's drunk and still running off the adrenaline of pulling off the biggest con they've ever attempted.

She means it to be an affectionate peck on the lips. It is completely Nate's fault that it turns into a slide of tongues, his hands fisting in her hair, and Sophie moaning into his mouth.

Somehow, they make it to the bed, but it's a near miss. There is a brief pause when she looks up at him, her fingers tracing against his cheek, her dress halfway off and ruined with wrinkles, and she murmurs her real name.

The rest gets lost in the way his hands hitch her legs around his waist, the press of him inside her, the way he whispers her name, her _real_ name, against her skin.)

She gets dressed in the morning, blinking against the sunlight and wishing for the darkest pair of sunglasses she can find because her head won't stop pounding. She can see Nate occasionally look in her direction, and the weight of his eyes makes her a little wet between her thighs.

But there isn't time for anything but this, not with the threat of Eliot coming back to check on Nate at any moment.

There is also the problem of Nate's skittishness when she steps up behind him and straightens his shirt collar, pressing a kiss against his neck. Her heart sinks a little bit.

_He regrets it._

Then, just before she leaves, he grabs her wrist, looks down at her with wide blue eyes, brushes her pulse point with his thumb.

"I have to go," she says quietly.

"Okay."

His fingers tighten around her wrist before he lets her go.

She can't help the smile on her face as she sneaks back into her room.

* * *

The next time is inevitable, helped along by the two of them downing copious amounts of alcohol. It seems they only need an excuse to lose their inhibitions because right now, Nate has her pressed against his door, his teeth dragging along her neck and his fingers inside her underwear.

Sophie can only moan and try to stay on her feet; she doesn't understand how he can move so _fast_ when drunk. Her hips jerk into his hand that is pushing her relentlessly, moving against her clit, fingers curling inside her. She gasps each breath, and her release hits her with a shock, nearly sending her to the floor.

(They do end up on the floor, later, if only because he _is_ too unsteady to hold her up against the wall, and it's messy and uncoordinated but every sensation hums along her skin as she moves over him, his fingers curled into her hip and pressing hard.

As she lies on top of him, after, his hands tracing her spine, she knows they will be here again and again even if they deny they are anything more than friends.

She doesn't know what they are anymore. But she likes whatever this is.)

* * *

"_I gotta make some changes."_

"_What kind of changes?"_

"_I got plans."_

"_Oh, and that never goes wrong."_

"_Very big plans."_

* * *

Sophie doesn't look up from the papers spread in front of her when Nate presses his lips to her neck.

"I'm busy," she says.

"I thought we could make up for those six months I was gone," he murmurs against her skin, his teeth catching on her earlobe.

"I'm not interested."

She can feel his smirk against her neck as he unbuttons her jeans and slips his fingers inside her underwear, feels how wet she is for him already, and she really wishes she could make him work harder for this.

He is the one who left for months.

He chuckles and circles his thumb lightly around her clit. "You're lying."

"Why is that such a surprise?" she asks, her breath hitching in her throat when he slides a finger into her.

He just kisses her, his mouth slow, soft, and open as she wraps her body around him.

* * *

There are times, moments when Nate sprawls next to her on a hotel bed, papers from files surrounding him, his brow creased with concentration, that Sophie thinks about their lives back when she was a thief and he was an insurance cop and they would work together like this.

She wonders sometimes if they were wrong all that time ago when he was married and she was halfway in love with him.

(She also wonders if something is wrong with them since they're doing the exact same thing now that they did then.

Except, now, she can clamber on top of him, whisper something filthy into his ear, and watch his eyes go wide and dark.

It feels different now. Maybe that's what matters.)

She feels his hand, warm on the inside on her thigh, hears the mattress creak as he moves over her. The night is still right now, his breath whispering over her lips right before he kisses her.

She wonders if this kind of happiness can last forever.

* * *

"_You were wrong about one thing."_

"_Really? Because I couldn't possibly be right, could I?"_

"_Wanting to move on with or without you. It matters. We matter."_


End file.
